I think it's interesting that so many of us are using a technology topic, because I was actually thinking about in trying to write a series of poems centered around how technology isolates us instead of brings us together. But I feel like that would be a little repetitive, so I tried to look at my idea from a broader angle, and came up with how capitalism has isolated us. I feel like people are pitted against each other from the instant we start getting graded, and I think this mentality of constant competition has divided more people than it has united in this country, and around the globe. We're always so worried about getting ahead and making money that we often forget about the people around us, who are all trying to do the same thing. I want my project to focus on solidarity, communal activities, and basically on things that bring people together.
So far the only things that I've really been able to consider (since I'm trying to use Miami students) is family (good or bad), loneliness, drinking (or the lack thereof), sex (or the lack thereof), and money (or the lack thereof). I'm kind of stuck, though, on how I want to funnel the communal idea of "loneliness" or "sex" into something that can appear on the page.
My first instinct was to do what I did in a previous project about dreams and sleep -- interview various people about their experience, transcribe those interviews and then select phrases and words from those texts. But I don't think that I want that to be the main way I go about building this project, because I've done that before. We've been reading in class a lot about refrain, and I was thinking about partially using that previously described method to come up with a refrain that I could repeat throughout a piece. I've also been considering printing out whatever refrain I come up with on handmade greeting cards cards, or in the bottoms of cups, or found objects and leaving them throughout campus (documenting all along with photos) or Uptown in places where they would be easily readable by a passer by -- of course they'll probably get stolen or destroyed relatively quickly -- so maybe I should make duplicates.
I'm thinking about making this refrain something that will make practically (with basic exceptions) every reader feel like they are part of a community, and connected to those around them. Even if every person is trapped inside their own heads, at least we are all trapped together. Perception is subjective, but there are commonalities in the human condition. But I still haven't come up with a way, other than recording testimonials or recording people talking without them knowing. I know this is pretty broad, so any suggestions, classmates?
Oh capitalism and consumerism. With every social construct there are pros and cons. The pros of capitalism is that it creates a sense of competition among businesses and producers. Where this business owners are just in it to make money, the fact that they have to compete keeps their prices low for the lowly people. Also, the competition with producers creates new ideas and new ways of doing things, i.e. computer chips getting smaller and smaller and hard drives getting bigger and bigger. We are all the time creating new things, better things. The cons contain one really big one. People invested in capitalism enough will only have a good day when they have screwed over someone else (monetarily speaking). A business gets a lot of money one day just means that they stole more consumers from someone else. Capitalism takes everyone and turns them into just a wallet.
ReplyDeleteThat was my two cents. I like the idea of incorporating people instead of leaving them out. Unfortunately it seems to be America's theme to leave some group of people out of the loop. I would look into the capitalist aspect more if I were you. It could lead to a different way of thinking about the other aspects of your project. Maybe comparing it to other nations' social constructs. Don't forget to look at the good points of capitalism and isolation. They are there. And incidentally the only thing I can help you with the sex thing would be orgies. But ancient Rome anyone?
Ok, so this is my third attempt to comment. My first (and very long) one got erased entirely when I tried to post it. GRRR. And the second one I thought posted, but now doesn't show up. Sigh. I'm going to try to recapture some of what I said, but it never comes out right after multiple regurgitations. The edges get too sharp, and I hate when a subtle point turns into a bullet point. So annoying.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, there's a nice pattern in your work of trying to find common ground and shared experiences that, as a fellow feeling human, I can appreciate. Thinking critically, though, I wonder if your project might benefit from questioning your underlying assumption which is (as I understand it), that it is natural/ normal for humans to be a part of a community and healthier to feel we are part of a community. I think that's a reasonable assumption, and your efforts at encouraging it are certainly worthwhile, but considering the nature of human communities/ interconnectedness might lend itself to more and better insights into how you can encourage more connection or else highlight the lack of connection.
What if individuation (and the "individuality" we Americans prize so highly) is the further stage of human development, and the desire for connection is borne out of millions of years of community-building that we needed to survive? Maybe we no longer need it to survive, and that's the reason it's falling away? In which case encouraging connectedness is, in effect, encouraging devolution and dependency. Or maybe we don't need community/ connection for survival anymore, but it is integral to our happiness. (Was it always? Or is it only that way now thanks to millions of years of community being associated with safety and safety being necessary for happiness?) In which case an appeal for increased community is more a value judgment about what it means to be a human on this planet sharing a life with other humans, and less about what is or is not intrinsically true or necessary about our natures.
I wonder if encouraging a sense of connection (as you want to do with the project) is an attempt to return things to a right/ better state-- more like a simpler past when people were "more connected"-- and if so, have you thought about the possibility that it might be an imaginary past? And that people might never have been, and might never be, any more connected than they are now? And that the type of connection is the only thing that changes, and not the degree? The idea that interconnectedness is an integral part of the actualized human experience and that modernity/ technology is disintegrating something necessary is not a new one. It's a fascinating and worthwhile thing to consider, and the changes are maybe easier to see in our time because of the speed, but people have been lamenting the same thing for a really long time.
I think this project would be more interesting if you thought about and wrote about WHY you think people should be more connected, rather than just assuming that it's obvious that they SHOULD be connected.