Christopher Owens
Composition 0200
Adam Johns
3 March 2009
Both Bill McKibben’s Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age and Christopher Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth heavy-handedly convey the sentiment that humanity has lost aspects of its collective meaning, and maybe we have. McKibben stresses that technology has contributed to this loss. Ware’s plot also involves loss of meaning of course, but to say that it parallels the arguments of McKibben is inaccurate. Unlike the arguments of Enough, Ware’s reasoning does not rely on technology to explain isolation, and the pointlessness of Jimmy’s life stems from his lack of personal meaning more than collective, or familial. They both have arguments warning of a meaningless state, but not the same meaningless state.
A large portion of Enough passes with McKibben attempting to substantiate his argument that humans will be rendered obsolete to later generations due to technology, at one point saying, “[…] offspring will be superior to their parents […] categorically better, of a higher order. Different” (61). In Jimmy Corrigan, it is actually quite striking to see the similarities of every generation of Corrigans. Each iteration develops in much the same manner the last did, yet there is still little meaning for any of them. Regardless of time period and technology the lives of both versions of Jimmy are equally pointless. This is true not because they are alone, but because they have no meaning in their personal lives, no purpose that drives them. In fact, Jimmy appears to be alone because he lacks the desire to do anything worthwhile.
Jimmy’s behavior is summarized by the various attempts to ignore his complete lack of personality or interest with rote routines in addition to setting obviously unattainable goals. He talks to his mother several times a day, falls into surreal daydreams, attempts to establish a connection with his father in middle-age, obsesses over superman, all because his life without these distractions has no content, no purpose. McKibben’s argument that humanity has lost purpose is strangely contradictory to this one. If Jimmy had been given a predisposed talent via genetic engineering, he may have had a more valuable experience.
4 comments:
Yeah- had some trouble with ideas for this one as the prompt is similar to one we've already written for
No, I think this paper is very interesting. I must stress though that it should be longer. I don't think this would be a hard thing to do, considering you have many very interesting ideas. Especially in the last sentence, there is alot you could elaborate on. What could be different about Jimmy if he had been genetically engineered? We all could make assumptions because of our readings about the subject, but just your thoughts about it would be interesting.
The second paragraph holds a very interesting observation about the different generations of Corrigans. You might want to incorporate though, that his father somehow broke free from his somewhat genetically condemned isolation. Why do you think that happened?
I think your paper has many interesting ideas just some elaboration would be not only helpful but just interesting.
Christopher Owens
Composition 0200
Adam Johns
3 March 2009
Both Bill McKibben’s Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age and Christopher Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth heavy-handedly convey the sentiment that humanity has lost aspects of its collective meaning, and maybe we have. McKibben stresses that technology has contributed to this loss. Ware’s plot also involves loss of meaning of course, but to say that it parallels the arguments of McKibben is inaccurate. Unlike the arguments of Enough, Ware’s reasoning does not rely on technology to explain isolation, and the pointlessness of Jimmy’s life stems from his lack of personal meaning more than collective, or familial. They both have arguments warning of a meaningless state, but not the same meaningless state.
A large portion of Enough passes with McKibben attempting to substantiate his argument that humans will be rendered obsolete to later generations due to technology, at one point saying, “[…] offspring will be superior to their parents […] categorically better, of a higher order. Different” (61). In Jimmy Corrigan, it is actually quite striking to see the similarities of every generation of Corrigans. Each iteration develops in much the same manner the last did, yet there is still little meaning for any of them. Regardless of time period and technology the lives of both versions of Jimmy are equally pointless. This is true not because they are alone, but because they have no meaning in their personal lives, no purpose that drives them. In fact, Jimmy appears to be alone because he lacks the desire to do anything worthwhile. His friends’ have metalworking skills, charm or some other attribute to prove them worthy of companionship.
Jimmy’s behavior is summarized by the various attempts to ignore his complete lack of personality or interest with rote routines in addition to setting obviously unattainable goals. He talks to his mother several times a day, falls into surreal daydreams, attempts to establish a connection with his father in middle-age, obsesses over superman, all because his life without these distractions has no content, no purpose. McKibben’s argument that humanity has lost purpose is strangely contradictory to this one. If Jimmy had been given a predisposed talent via genetic engineering, he may have had a more valuable experience. As McKibben says, it would be possible for Jimmy’s parents to choose specifically what they wanted in a genetically engineered future. His talents would match whatever hopes they had for him and he would feel fulfilled living to his genetic specifications. Ware’s work implies that regardless of technological state, personal meaning is the most important of priorities and McKibben thinks the same of collective meaning, yet these conclusions are contradictory.
Julia - you might have said a little more about how to lengthen it - you basically give one good example, then stop.
Chris - Ware doesn't rely on technology to explain isolation? Really? I'd want to hear some sort of explanation of all the material about the World's Columbian Exposition which would justify that view.
Maybe each generation of the Corrigans is identical, as you say - but that's something that should be demonstrated, rather than just asserted.
Your idea that Jimmy's empty life and McKibben's idea of future emptiness is a good one, but you don't do anything to demonstrate it through the details of either book - the last paragraph might be an effective introduction, but it's hardly a whole essay!
Short version - this is the shell or the beginning of an essay, not the substance of one.
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