Reading One: Forster
Reading One: E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops"
Summary: A futuristic tale about one woman and her son and their unshared opinions of the world they live in. The surface of the earth is no longer inhospitable--at least that is what they are told. Life thrives underground; people live in honeycomb-type cells where anything they need appears with just a push of a button. People are in constant communication with one another, yet they hardly ever talk face-to-face let alone touch one another. Vashti and her son Kuno have lived in these cells their entire lives half a world away. Kuno begins to dissent; he fears everyone has become too attached to the Machine, the only thing that sustains this underground society. He ventures outside to the surface of the earth only to be pulled back under by the Machine. A few years after Kuno's escapade two major changes happen within the society: surface travel is basically abolished and religion is reestablished (religion of the Machine, that is). Slowly the Machine deteriorates; people are angry at first but eventually learn to live in horrendous conditions. Eventually the Machine collapses into itself and everyone dies.
Notes:
-Aspects of "The Machine Stops" is found in movies such as 'I, Robot,' 'Residential Evil,' and 'The Matrix.'
-There is no natural movement in this underground world; muscles wear away because of lack of movement and no exercise.
-Technology isolates people from each other almost entirely. Although they chat all day, human contact is almost nonexistant.
-Vashti talks incessantly about 'ideas' but we never understand what ideas she is talking about. They cannot be ideas as we think of them today.
-The constellation of Orion is referenced by Kuno. Orion is characterized as a hunter--the epitimy of primal man--something which Kuno wishes to get in touch with.
-The race of underground dwellers only accepts things that are satisfactory--'good enough' suffices. People accept what the Machine gives them, they have lost all willpower.
-The number three is referenced several times; three, in reference to Christianity and the Bible, represents the trinity. The Machine is god.
-Parents are almost nonexistant; Kuno and Vashti are a rare exception. The Book states that a parents' duty ends after their child is born. People are turning onto machines--they no longer have to nurture and care for one another. This reminds me of the tests done on baby monkies by Harry Harlow in the fifties. Harlow discovered that baby monkies fared better with a terry cloth imitation mother than a wire mother. How can people be raised by machines instead of their parents? Wouldn't the test results show basically the same?
-"Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over." p.155 I read this as I was watching the mini series Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel. How odd it is to hear someone talk about how the earth isn't different while watching a program about the diversity and beauty of planet earth.
-Without work or movement muscles deteriorate and dissolve. On an eppisode of Inside Brokhaven Obesity Clinic, a very large man's leg muscles had almost deteriorated because he hadn't stood up on his legs for several years. Would the human race resemble that man? Would be be lumps of flesh and bone?
-In the story, the people in the society seemed to be very irate and fustrated. Whenever they came in contact with others they were irritated and angry. Is this because natural beauty had eluded them? They are trapped inside a Machine, a cold, dark, metallic thing that doesn't live or breathe.
-Vashti talks incessantly about 'ideas' but what are these ideas exactly? She flies over the Himalays and says there are no ideas there and closes the blind. How can one not have any ideas with a sight like that?
-I love this quote because it is so incongritous with what I believe in: "I have had the most terrible journey and greatly retarded the development of my soul." p.164
-Vashti believes that the Machine is some sort of god and secretly worships it. The act of 'Homelessness' that is basically killing people is similar to excommunication from the church. The Book also represents the Bible; dissenters in the Biblical and Crusade time period were killed, just like the Machine kills anyone who tries to escape to the outer surface.
-Another interesting point is the reversal of the concept of survival of the fitest; in the world Forster created the weakest are rewarded and the more althletic and strong are killed off before they have a chance to grow up.
-Once the respirator permit lifted complete control was almost upon the underground society. Since not many people went out onto the surface they got rid of going to the surface altoghter by taking away the breathing apparatus. Now humans are almost exclusively all underground; the air-planes hardly carry anyone anymore. Fear keeps control.
-The next step is the reestablishment of religion, only a man-made object is worshipped as a god. A similar context is found in the Bible when the Hebrews create a golden calf and worship it. Mechanical religion.
-Vashti complains constantly that there is not enough time to visit Kuno; what is she living her life for? She doesn't work, she doesn't go out, she attends lectures and gives lectures and talks to her friends about ideas that never seem to form in their tiny fleshy minds.
-The catastrophe arrives when people begin to rely too heavily on the Machine to do everything for them. The worst scenario happens: the Machine's part that fixes itself becomes itself unfixable and any human who knew how to fix it forgot how to long ago.
-Euthanasia is a common everyday happenstance; when people feel dejected or sad they call for assisted suicide from the Machine, and, it being a machine with no feelings or emotions, kills the person. However, if you ask for death and the birth rate doesn't surpass the death rate, your request to die is denied until the morality and mortality indexes are balanced.
Notes On Lecture Notes:
-I suppose that our society is faintly similar to the society Forster paints in that we speak to each other in codes and indirectly through the internet, and cell phone texting. Are we different people on the internet? Yes, most of us are. Are the people in the cells in Forster's story the same as they communicate through the Machine with others? It's hard to say because we aren't given an example of converstation between friends in the society.
-Forster's story can be taken on a literal level and a metaphorical level. On the literal level the people in this society are actually living inside a machine they build underneath the earth. On the metaphorical level the story is about a future race of people who have become so isolated from each other because of technology.
-Can people be apart of a machine? Could workers on a conveyor belt be considered as serving the machine? Is a factory a machine and people its movable, thinkable parts? I think that we can be considered machines or apart of machines. We treat our bodies as machines; we give it fuel, we get check ups/tune ups, sometimes we even get new parts. And, like all machinery, we eventually wear out. I think we can become part of a machine, just like a factory is considered a machine and all the movable working parts, metal or flesh are a machine.
-If the workers are considered parts of the whole machine, then what are the corporate and management workers considered as? I believe they may be the 'brain' of the machine; they usually have more education and intelligence than the common assembly line workers just as a computer chip in a toy or machine is the brain of the entire machine.
-Kuno believes that mankind is the measure of all things; I believe this is an egotisical male-centered view of the history of the planet. The earth, much less the universe, was here a heck of a lot longer than any human form has been. Humankind is not the measure of all things--it isn't even the measure of all things during the span of human life on this planet. Animals, plants, insects, birds, they are all here with us and perform such intricate and phenomenal acts to survive that we cannot compare ourselves to them. We can only compare ourselves with ourselves.
Summary: A futuristic tale about one woman and her son and their unshared opinions of the world they live in. The surface of the earth is no longer inhospitable--at least that is what they are told. Life thrives underground; people live in honeycomb-type cells where anything they need appears with just a push of a button. People are in constant communication with one another, yet they hardly ever talk face-to-face let alone touch one another. Vashti and her son Kuno have lived in these cells their entire lives half a world away. Kuno begins to dissent; he fears everyone has become too attached to the Machine, the only thing that sustains this underground society. He ventures outside to the surface of the earth only to be pulled back under by the Machine. A few years after Kuno's escapade two major changes happen within the society: surface travel is basically abolished and religion is reestablished (religion of the Machine, that is). Slowly the Machine deteriorates; people are angry at first but eventually learn to live in horrendous conditions. Eventually the Machine collapses into itself and everyone dies.
Notes:
-Aspects of "The Machine Stops" is found in movies such as 'I, Robot,' 'Residential Evil,' and 'The Matrix.'
-There is no natural movement in this underground world; muscles wear away because of lack of movement and no exercise.
-Technology isolates people from each other almost entirely. Although they chat all day, human contact is almost nonexistant.
-Vashti talks incessantly about 'ideas' but we never understand what ideas she is talking about. They cannot be ideas as we think of them today.
-The constellation of Orion is referenced by Kuno. Orion is characterized as a hunter--the epitimy of primal man--something which Kuno wishes to get in touch with.
-The race of underground dwellers only accepts things that are satisfactory--'good enough' suffices. People accept what the Machine gives them, they have lost all willpower.
-The number three is referenced several times; three, in reference to Christianity and the Bible, represents the trinity. The Machine is god.
-Parents are almost nonexistant; Kuno and Vashti are a rare exception. The Book states that a parents' duty ends after their child is born. People are turning onto machines--they no longer have to nurture and care for one another. This reminds me of the tests done on baby monkies by Harry Harlow in the fifties. Harlow discovered that baby monkies fared better with a terry cloth imitation mother than a wire mother. How can people be raised by machines instead of their parents? Wouldn't the test results show basically the same?
-"Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over." p.155 I read this as I was watching the mini series Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel. How odd it is to hear someone talk about how the earth isn't different while watching a program about the diversity and beauty of planet earth.
-Without work or movement muscles deteriorate and dissolve. On an eppisode of Inside Brokhaven Obesity Clinic, a very large man's leg muscles had almost deteriorated because he hadn't stood up on his legs for several years. Would the human race resemble that man? Would be be lumps of flesh and bone?
-In the story, the people in the society seemed to be very irate and fustrated. Whenever they came in contact with others they were irritated and angry. Is this because natural beauty had eluded them? They are trapped inside a Machine, a cold, dark, metallic thing that doesn't live or breathe.
-Vashti talks incessantly about 'ideas' but what are these ideas exactly? She flies over the Himalays and says there are no ideas there and closes the blind. How can one not have any ideas with a sight like that?
-I love this quote because it is so incongritous with what I believe in: "I have had the most terrible journey and greatly retarded the development of my soul." p.164
-Vashti believes that the Machine is some sort of god and secretly worships it. The act of 'Homelessness' that is basically killing people is similar to excommunication from the church. The Book also represents the Bible; dissenters in the Biblical and Crusade time period were killed, just like the Machine kills anyone who tries to escape to the outer surface.
-Another interesting point is the reversal of the concept of survival of the fitest; in the world Forster created the weakest are rewarded and the more althletic and strong are killed off before they have a chance to grow up.
-Once the respirator permit lifted complete control was almost upon the underground society. Since not many people went out onto the surface they got rid of going to the surface altoghter by taking away the breathing apparatus. Now humans are almost exclusively all underground; the air-planes hardly carry anyone anymore. Fear keeps control.
-The next step is the reestablishment of religion, only a man-made object is worshipped as a god. A similar context is found in the Bible when the Hebrews create a golden calf and worship it. Mechanical religion.
-Vashti complains constantly that there is not enough time to visit Kuno; what is she living her life for? She doesn't work, she doesn't go out, she attends lectures and gives lectures and talks to her friends about ideas that never seem to form in their tiny fleshy minds.
-The catastrophe arrives when people begin to rely too heavily on the Machine to do everything for them. The worst scenario happens: the Machine's part that fixes itself becomes itself unfixable and any human who knew how to fix it forgot how to long ago.
-Euthanasia is a common everyday happenstance; when people feel dejected or sad they call for assisted suicide from the Machine, and, it being a machine with no feelings or emotions, kills the person. However, if you ask for death and the birth rate doesn't surpass the death rate, your request to die is denied until the morality and mortality indexes are balanced.
Notes On Lecture Notes:
-I suppose that our society is faintly similar to the society Forster paints in that we speak to each other in codes and indirectly through the internet, and cell phone texting. Are we different people on the internet? Yes, most of us are. Are the people in the cells in Forster's story the same as they communicate through the Machine with others? It's hard to say because we aren't given an example of converstation between friends in the society.
-Forster's story can be taken on a literal level and a metaphorical level. On the literal level the people in this society are actually living inside a machine they build underneath the earth. On the metaphorical level the story is about a future race of people who have become so isolated from each other because of technology.
-Can people be apart of a machine? Could workers on a conveyor belt be considered as serving the machine? Is a factory a machine and people its movable, thinkable parts? I think that we can be considered machines or apart of machines. We treat our bodies as machines; we give it fuel, we get check ups/tune ups, sometimes we even get new parts. And, like all machinery, we eventually wear out. I think we can become part of a machine, just like a factory is considered a machine and all the movable working parts, metal or flesh are a machine.
-If the workers are considered parts of the whole machine, then what are the corporate and management workers considered as? I believe they may be the 'brain' of the machine; they usually have more education and intelligence than the common assembly line workers just as a computer chip in a toy or machine is the brain of the entire machine.
-Kuno believes that mankind is the measure of all things; I believe this is an egotisical male-centered view of the history of the planet. The earth, much less the universe, was here a heck of a lot longer than any human form has been. Humankind is not the measure of all things--it isn't even the measure of all things during the span of human life on this planet. Animals, plants, insects, birds, they are all here with us and perform such intricate and phenomenal acts to survive that we cannot compare ourselves to them. We can only compare ourselves with ourselves.