Blake Lacey "Things Fall Apart"

Having discussed both the postcolonial and feminist perspectives, I feel that the postcolonial lens in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, will present an appropriate angle in attacking this prompt.  My decision came about because of the discussions in class discussing both postcolonial theory as well as Feminist theory.  I discovered that postcolonial theory left a stronger impression and made me more interested in developing an essay revolving around this subject that really had an impact on me.  I feel that postcolonial ideas and theories are interesting due to the process of how they develop and what pushes these theories to evolve and mold over a course of time.  

     Postcolonial theory presented in the handout we were given in class, explained how society has a way of grouping people into categories based upon their social power apparatus in society.  Developing an understanding of what this means, I found a quote to connect this theory to the text, “Likewise, the assumption that Western Europeans, and in particular, the British people, were biologically superior to any other race – a term for a class of people based on physical, cultural distinctions, or both – remained relatively unquestioned.”  This quote ties into Things Fall Apart because it deals with different social inequalities in the novel and shows how power has the impact to set guidelines that seem to be imbedded in stone because no other lower class will question the high classes' ways because they feel that the higher class has it all figured out and it should not be questioned by a lesser point of view.  This also shows how power has the ability to alter society's opinions and make them believe whatever the person in front of them is believing.  The idea that postcolonial ideas never seem to be questioned because of a higher power in society will be a main topic in my writing.  I will discuss how postcolonial theory ties into the novel Things Fall Apart.

 

 

 

 

Technocracy Impowering Manufacturing Success

Brave New World and this article resemble similar qualities of economic technological philosophy because they both idealize on the idea of best manufacturing goods using the use of machines.  The idea of machines revolutionizing the world gave proof to Arkwright’s theory; Arkwright trained workers, mostly children “to conform to the regular celerity of the machine.” and in doing so gave an enormous boost to the modern growth of forms of technocratic capitalism.”  This type of manufacturing revolutionized the production of goods produced by Arkwright and paved the way for future factory production.  Technocracy was a way to redefine what the world was capable of doing and it meant you could do and produce things at such a faster speed that it almost undefined the laws set from previous generations.  With Technocracy being a way in which everything turned to in humanity, progress can now be transformed in a way in which boundaries are nothing but a check point in an unending line of technological opportunity. 

            Technocracy is “a society only loosely controlled by social custom and religious tradition and driven by the impulse to invent – and “unseen hand” will eliminate the incompetent and reward those who produce cheaply and well the goods that people want.  It was not clear then, and still isn’t, whose unseen mind guides whose unseen hand, but it is possible.”  This idea of inventing technological manufacturing grew straight into the idea of an “Assembly Line”, meaning machines would do a majority of the work cutting out the middle man in a business.  Relying on the ability of machines to carve the production side of a business and speed up this process for max results.  However, with companies taking advantage of the wealth provided by a technocracy business ran by machinery, brought a whole new meaning to business power; this is when a “Technopoly” was created.  Technopoly resembles a totalitarian technocracy.  This power occurs when a business overtakes other competitors in its particular field and is able to set their own prices and operate the way they want to operate because they have no competitors to compete with.  Technopoly is a definite threat to society if government allows it to become too powerful and doesn’t limit its power. 

            Frederick Winslow Taylor fits into the discussion because “his ideas about what culture is made of remain the scaffolding of the present-day American Technology.” His views and theories of business success proved to be a mile-stone for future economic and business success.

Technologies Attack On the Human Race

Singularity is the philosophy of technologies exponential growth through advancements in itself.  The idea that technology will one day rule the world promotes theories of questions and concerns in society. Humanity is developing newer and faster technology each year; this technology is able to increase at this rapid pace because technology has the ability to speed itself up with technology being the secret ingredient for its personal success.  The advancements taking place in the world are at a constant climb and the speed of technology never seems to alter, this rise of technological power helps humanity become stronger and faster; however with technology never seeming to slow, will this source of power over take humanity with its endless abilities to compensate in the world?  Humanity is beginning to look like a “stepping stone” to technologies future dominating existence in the world. 

The merging of technology with humanity seems to be the only solution to keep humanities dominance on Earth.  With humanity being a distinctive group in which we can think and creatively adapt to the world today, puts our race above technologies abilities to only operate with processing information.  Computers as we see them today are an instrument in which we use to command information from them.  The human brain acts as a computer as well, because we are able to store and share information but the human brain has the advantage to think and create things randomly without the need for already existing information in the world.  Although we are clearly in control of technology, with the rapid and constant rate of technologies abilities to improve day after day, eventually technology will possibly compose human traits that will take over humanities advantages over technology.

Technology being a key source to society’s successful production in the world ties into Brave New World because in the novel, consumption and production was the government’s primary concern in order to maintain efficiency in the world.  They tie into each other because they both deal with the increasing consumption of technology and production.  They both take into account the idea of technology over- taking the world and becoming more powerful than the human race.

           

Blake Lacey response:

In the short excerpt "A Generation of Men Raised by Women:  Gender Constructs in 'Fight Club'" written by Torri E. Gibbs, describes the physical traits that explain the general tradition of a man and women in a common relationship.  These bonds that unite a man and a woman seem to be the formula to form an everlasting relationship or "true love" in other words.  The chemical traits between a man and a woman seem to be the secret ingredients needed to form dependence and love towards one another.

The author, Torri E. Gibbs, goes into investigating the modern cultural ways of successful relationships in this modern age and discovers that "suggesting that two people of the opposite sex cannot peacefully coexist while both display the same stereotypical gender traits, and that neither can achieve proper ethos until they are together and exhibiting their assigned traits."  This theory has been proved to work due to the "opposites attract theory".  A masculine male does not seem to work out well with a female who presents over-masculine traits.  This is the same as a feminine male with an overly feminine female.  If their stereotypes are the same, then the odds are against them.  Relationships that possess opposite sterotypes seem to hold a lot more emotional attraction. 

            Another theory suggests that males and females always want what they can’t have; the thrill of going after something that seems too good to be true is something the human race seems to be most attracted to.  The reason why males and females don’t work, in most cases, is because they don’t have enough “chase” in one another’s relationship.  The “chase factor” is something that keeps a relationship exciting and a little off balance.  The reason why this is so important is because when relationships get to a point where things become repetitive and the same, the excitement level weakens and becomes stagnant.  Dependence on one another’s personality and love is most important.  Physical traits and human presence all add up to a successful relationship.

            Love is something undefined by definition, but only shown through feeling.   There is no amount or level of love that can ever be scientifically proven to be humanly correct; love comes from feelings and emotions that are developed through a relationship, usually between a male and female, and those feelings grow stronger and deeper and can only be expressed to one another and no one else.  A man relies on his woman and the woman relies on her man.  This conjunction is a sole part of human relationships dating back to early history.  The balance in a relationship must be congruent to that of each other or else the weight will fall upon the person who is not pulling their load and the relationship will fall apart because of this fact.  ‘Fight Club’ is something that encounters a vast variety of personalities and feelings that seem to constantly stir the pot of human feeling and relationship boundaries.  In the world today, people find entertainment in watching the unrealistic relationships because the entertaining factor is always going to be there.  However, if the ‘Fight Club’ was a normal relationship based scenario, people would pay no attention to it because it’s so common in the real world that it wouldn’t be entertaining. 

The ‘Fight Club’ is an opportunity to look at the unrealistic ways to make relationships interesting and different.  Humanity today looks to be different in everything we do, because “different” is popular.  You can’t become popular by following in the footsteps of someone who has already walked the walk.  Relationships pull from every ethnic, religious, cultural, and diplomatic region in the world, but they all follow the basic principles in order to make that ever- lasting bond with someone.  Dependence is the key factor that will always be needed and pursued in every relationship in order to make something “real” and concrete.

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/227/a-generation-of-men-raised-by-women-gender-constructs-in-fight-club