The age of this piece is only apparent in the historical references used when talking about the civilization that lived before the one featured in the story. However, the story is still quite futuristic, and relevant. Our civilization today, although more advanced, is still closer to the ancient one in the story than it is to the futuristic one. We have yet to completely eliminate human interaction or manage to have our civilization run and monitored by a single machine. Nonetheless, technology is only becoming more and more advanced – bringing us closer than ever, virtually, but also alienating us more than ever in the physical world (reality). In the story, the hum of the machine was a sound the people were oblivious to, they had been born hearing the hum so they knew no difference. That “hum” in today’s society is the subliminal messages we all constantly receive from the different forms of media we engage with – and for kids today, they are born hearing that hum. Likewise, in the story’s conclusion, it was realized the importance of keeping not only the soul happy but also the body. Although in our society today, our bodies are not just sitting in a room while our mind goes on simulated adventures, our world is only becoming more simulated. Video messaging/ calling, VR gaming and other experiences, online relationships, etc. are all ways in which we choose to entertain ourselves that are slowly contributing to distancing use from each other and “reality”.
Week 1: Response to “The Machine Stops” E.M. Foerster – Vincent Wu
Foerster’s “The Machine Stops” is a great read. I had actually read other stories that are similar to this: society over-relying on technology and then punished by it. The biggest difference between “The Machine Stops” and the other stories is that within TMS, The Machine actually stops itself, and the society is “freed.” While reading the short, Vashti’s “worshiping” of the machine was spine-chilling because in a way I could see it happening to society today. We may not worship technology but we definitely have gotten to a point where we cannot leave the house or even go to the restroom without our phones.
Foerster gives a extreme version of relying on technology, but nonetheless his point of over-reliance on technology is depicted. The conversation between Kuno and Vashti is realistic, showing a kind of laziness to see even your loved ones. I’ve always loved dystopian stories because they show an extreme version of society, but gives you the motivation to try to change even a little bit.
Week 1: E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” — Julia Riguerra
The universe Forster creates in “The Machine Stops” is a dystopian one, telling the common tale of a single revolutionary with radical ideas in opposition to the status quo. In this universe, the Machine governs society and the everyday lifestyles of individuals through the pure convenience of its technology. It is treated as a godlike being even though the population seems aware that it is, indeed, a manmade creation. But like man, the machines they create can never be perfect, nor can they satisfy the many needs and wants of people. As such, it is important to note that technology is viewed as humanity progressing, though Forster’s narrative shows an alternate reality in which technology both governs a society and destroys it.
Forster illustrates the alienating quality of technology through the way in which the characters interact (or don’t) in this society. Human contact is extremely limited viewed as something primeval and abnormal—after all, when you can simply conjure an image of a person or audience, what is the need for physical contact? This is emphasized through the way Vashti interacts with her son Kuno, as the method of childrearing is left to a public nursery where children and parents have limited contact. In spite of this, Vashti still relents when Kuno asks her to: “True, but there was something
special about Kuno — indeed there had been something special about all her children —and, after all, she must brave the journey if he desired it” (Forster 6). This “something special” alludes to the natural bond that parents have with their children, though in such a society this feeling would go unannounced or reached taboo status, as many things related to emotion have.
Forster warns against depending upon technology to the point that it is allowed to infringe upon the innate qualities of human nature, such as human contact (considered “rude”) and exposure to the outside world. However, while assimilation into a society is inevitable when you have known nothing else, it is not impossible to break free of a damaging cycle or simply to identify it, as Kuno asserts, “We say ‘space is annihilated,’ but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have lost a part of ourselves. I am determined to recover it” (Forster 11). For a society so infatuated with ideas, the people who inhabit it are terrified of experiencing anything that isn’t within a screen or in the safe confines of their rooms.
Response to EM Forster – Catt Kim
I think the general gist of the short story we read for class will be discussed quite often in these blog posts, so I’ll go straight into some parts I found particularly interesting or note worthy.
First, about the noise from the machine on page 8, Vashti “did not notice the noise, for she had been born with it in her ears.” I thought this was quite an interesting detail because it shows the influence of normality. If you’re born x way and everyone around you accepts that as normal, you don’t know any better. I think there are actually few aspects that humans will innately be repulsed by- a lot of what we consider socially acceptable is just that- social norms that have been ingrained into us as acceptable. This idea obviously extends past just the tangible noise and into the way society took place in the machine; the isolation, the selfishness, the parental abandonment, etc. This phenomenon is actually visible in today’s world, as well, in cultural difference. Things that are taken as just the way things are- ie tan skin being beautiful in the west and highly desired, are not perceived in the same way in other places, but to each group of people their way of thinking seems perfectly logical and reasonable.
The next quote I found interesting was when Vashti says that if Kuno “did not die to-day he would die to-morrow. There was not room for such a person in the world” on page 14. This brought to mind the idea of being “incompatible with human life.” I heard this term in a medical context, regarding unborn babies who had ailments that would make them unable to live past a few days, or at all. However, I think that on a much less extreme scale this can also be applied to people who simply do not fit in with society. While I’m not saying that they should or would die like Vashti says, it could make their lives either increasingly difficult or lonely.
Lastly, I wanted to talk about the idea of religion presented. When Vashti says that “‘The Machine has been most merciful,'” Kuno replies with “‘I prefer the mercy of God'” (17). However, I think it’s an interesting juxtaposition that while religion as we know it was such a radical idea in the story, it’s now quite traditional, and there are many people who find the idea of God ridiculous. And a similar idea can be found when The Machine reinstates religion, but it’s only The Book of the Machine, which is basically just an instruction manual for the contraption they live in. While that detail increases the satiric and dsytopian nature of the story, some view the current state of religion as just as repressing, strict, and crazy as we view The Machine. I suppose it’s just interesting to see the way that society changes.
Response to E.M. Forster—Kimmy Tanchay
In the short story, “The Machine Stops”, Foster conveys the dystopian future of a “machine”-controlled world where any spare human thought or essence is heavily discouraged. Told in a third person narrative and follows the characters of Vashti and Kuno, the story heavily suggests the detrimental effects on the human race when the power of technology becomes uncontrollable.
Although the Machine was able to save the human race as a species, the characteristics, such as morals, thoughts, emotions, real interactions and ideas, that make human beings human has been lost in the process. The capitalisation of the “Machine” conveys the significant presence of technology amongst the lives of human beings that it has become more than a mere object. In this world, human beings not only conform to the rules dictated upon them by the Machine, but they also refuse to criticise or go against it with Vashti stating, “Oh hush! You mustn’t say anything against the machine.” () Hence, further showing the power of the Machine and foreshadowing its destructive nature as it is able to spark fear in humans despite machines being created by us. This perhaps may allude to symbolism for human being’s current relationship with religion or even strong political government censorship such as in China.
In the end, the Machine Stops provides a foreshadowing of the dangers on the over-reliance of machines and technology to human beings. This is extremely relevant in a time when digital media and technology has quickly taken over and integrated into many of our daily lives that we often fail to remember how to live without them.