Stephanie Errigo
3/1/08
Essay #4
When I sat down to write this essay, I thought to myself, “What the heck should I write about?” And believe me it wasn’t an easy task to think about what to elaborate on this week. But then I thought to myself, “What if this were the future, what would my meaning of writing even be?” If a person who writes for a living loses meaning in their writing, others won’t want to read it, and just like other professions, you must be successful in order to make a living. McKibben is totally correct in saying that we have lost collective meaning, and poor Jimmy Corrigan is lost in a cycle of being abused and not seen as important.
Things that we have a passion for often give us a pleasurable outcome when we put a lot of passion into it. McKibben is a writer and has been for awhile. He writes for pleasure because it is his passion. In the future, what meaning would his writing hold? McKibben is right, we have lost collective meaning, and everything is dwindling further and further from our reach. Soon passion and pleasure will no longer be found in the everyday activities that normally provide that for people. If we are good at everything, we can’t find pleasure in every activity, it’s just not possible.
In McKibben’s book, he talks about the thought of genetically engineered people and when technology has done enough. He opposes the view that many people have which is pushing nanotechnology to the farthest. He also uses metaphors to back up his points in a subtle way. In ways I feel like the collective meaning that we lost is also some privileges that we have gained.
In Enough, McKibben says that, “The researchers have found that people expect material progress to increase, and also expect “inner happiness” or “peace of mind” to decrease.” (122) He also goes onto to talk about how we now have running water and how the effort is minimal. Some things are just better left undone in today’s technology.
Jimmy Corrigan on the other hand finds himself in a mundane world where he isn’t appreciated and is abused. He has no technology to help him along and would maybe think that he would have been better off as an engineered child who was made to be a productive citizen that would make his father proud. I feel like the Superman figure in his life plays the dad that he has always longed for, but it still adds little meaning to his life.
The Superman character in Jimmy Corrigan can be seen as a father figure that Jimmy has always wanted, but in also odd ways, he seems like a character that Jimmy doesn’t want. Why would Jimmy see him falling to his death and then not really be sad about it? Jimmy’s life has lost it’s meaning throughout his many struggles. He imagines killing his father many times, his thoughts are horrible thoughts that if someone drew that as their picture today we wouldn’t think twice before calling the suicide hotline. Why has Jimmy’s life lost it’s collective meaning?
With Jimmy’s life being so mundane and ready for something to go wrong for him, he no longer finds the good and has a hard time even seeing that he is blessed. If I had a life like Jimmy Corrigan, I wouldn’t be a happy adult or a happy teenager. Collective meaning can mean a lot to people, but a lot of people’s meanings may come from their parents. That is where Jimmy lacks. . .the parent area.
Whether it be McKibben or Jimmy Corrigan, we can see that much of collective meaning has been lost in this world. Jimmy Corrigan is a fiction novel where a character has an all but real scenario of abuse and unwantedness. McKibben shows that in other ways in the real future that we are losing our meaning. If meaning is lost in everyday activities, we may as well never been creative again and we may as well stop being ourselves.
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4 comments:
Melanie,
I feel like this needs a lot of work..but I'm not exactly sure how to make it better. Hopefully you can give me some tips!
Thanks!
Stephanie
Your introduction is strange. Writing the essay from the future would be a good idea - simply to raise the idea without doing it, though, isn't as good.
Both the Corrigan section and the McKibben section are vague. Why do you feel that writing, in particular, will be meaningless in the future? I have absolutely no idea what the particular problem is here.
Your Corrigan section was less vague - the idea of Jimmy aspiring toward some kind of technological transformation is good, although you don't deal with any of the relevant details (the robot dream and his use of the tape recorder being prominent examples in my mind).
The bigger issue, though, is that you don't do anything to connect the vaguely defined technological issues which interest you in McKibben, and the lack-of-parenting issues that interest you in Ware. What makes these two issues one? How can you make some kind of unified argument about modern life here? The relatively simple way would be by arguing that Ware is giving us an example of what McKibben sees as the loss of meaning - but that argument isn't here in any coherent form yet.
Stephanie Errigo
3/1/08
Essay #4
As I sit down to write this essay, I think to myself, “What the heck should I write about?” And believe me it isn’t an easy task to think about what to elaborate on this week. But then I think to myself, “If this were the future, what would my meaning of writing this as an individual essay even be?” If a person who writes for a living loses meaning in their writing, others won’t want to read it, and just like other professions, you must be successful in order to make a living. If everyone is good at writing, it would no longer be interesting to see what everyone had to say. McKibben is totally correct in saying that we have lost collective meaning, and poor Jimmy Corrigan is lost in a cycle of being abused and not seen as important, his meaning has been lost also. His life holds no meaning and technology is to blame for both of these problems, which are the loss of collective meaning and Jimmy’s loss of meaning in his life.
Things that we have a passion for often give us a pleasurable outcome when we put a lot of time and effort into it. McKibben is a writer and has been for awhile. He writes for pleasure because it is his passion. In the future, what meaning would his writing hold? McKibben is right, we have lost collective meaning, and everything is dwindling further and further from our reach. Soon passion and pleasure will no longer be found in the everyday activities that normally provide that for people. If we are good at everything, we can’t find pleasure in every activity, it’s just not possible. Writing would no longer have meaning because people would no longer have anything special to write about because thoughts as we know them would become mundane to everyone around us.
In McKibben’s book, he talks about the thought of genetically engineered people and when technology has done enough. He opposes the view that many people have which is pushing nanotechnology to the farthest. He also uses metaphors to back up his points in a subtle way. In ways I feel like the collective meaning that we lost is also some privileges that we have gained. The American people don’t have to work as hard as they usually do for just about everything.
In Enough, McKibben says that, “The researchers have found that people expect material progress to increase, and also expect “inner happiness” or “peace of mind” to decrease.” (122) He also goes onto to talk about how we now have running water and how the effort is minimal. Some things are just better left undone in today’s technology. Mckibben also talks of Joy who is starting to realize that technology could be a bad thing in the recent years where it has become almost a fear in many people (89). Collective meaning may have even been more lost than we thought before.
Jimmy Corrigan on the other hand finds himself in a mundane world where he isn’t appreciated and is abused. He has no technology to help him along and would maybe think that he would have been better off as an engineered child who was made to be a productive citizen that would make his father proud. The lack for technology can also be seen with the dream about the robot. He even dreams of technology. But as for Jimmy’s meaning in life with his father, I feel like the Superman figure plays the dad that he has always longed for, but it still adds little meaning to his life. His life essentially has little or no meaning, though some features in the graphic novel try to add some meaning such as the Superman character.
The Superman character in Jimmy Corrigan can be seen as a father figure that Jimmy has always wanted, but in also odd ways, he seems like a character that Jimmy doesn’t want. Why would Jimmy see him falling to his death and then not really be sad about it? Jimmy’s life has lost it’s meaning throughout his many struggles. He imagines killing his father many times, his thoughts are horrible thoughts that if someone drew that as their picture today we wouldn’t think twice before calling the suicide hotline. Why has Jimmy’s life lost it’s collective meaning? An answer may be found in his past generation of his grandfather.
Jimmy’s grandfather was left atop a roof of a building that was built by his father for the fair. In this instant, the technology of the new buildings left Jimmy’s grandfather in the dust, alone. Technology was to blame for his troubles and history seemed to repeat itself when it came to young Jimmy whose father left him also until many years later.
With Jimmy’s life being so mundane and ready for something to go wrong for him, he no longer finds the good and has a hard time even seeing that he is blessed. If I had a life like Jimmy Corrigan, I wouldn’t be a happy adult or a happy teenager. Collective meaning can mean a lot to people, but a lot of people’s meanings may come from their parents. That is where Jimmy lacks. . .the parent area. His father has never really cared about his life just as in his grandfather’s case.
Whether it be McKibben or Jimmy Corrigan, we can see that much of collective meaning has been lost in this world. Jimmy Corrigan is a fiction novel where a character has an all but real scenario of abuse and unwantedness. He essentially has no meaning and some of it can be attributed to technology. McKibben shows that in other ways in the real future that we are losing our meaning also with the help of technology. If meaning is lost in everyday activities, we may as well never been creative again and stop being ourselves.
You have expanded and, I think, clarified your work in this version - it is better in a number of ways. Nonetheless, I don't think that fundmanetally, at the level of concepts, it's really that different from the first version. What you have to say in response to McKibben is only loosely connected to what you have to say about Ware; you don't give us any particular reason to think that Jimmy's condition is really related to the problems discussed by McKibben. In both sections, you rely almost exclusively on generalization: you make many claims about the nature of contemporary and future life, but don't really back any of them up through an argument. You need to think in terms of evidence: why should a skeptical reader agree with you after reading your work? I don't see any reason why someone would here.
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