1. Hello, my name is Jordan. I was born and raised in New York, so the city holds a very special place in my heart. I’m a huge basketball and football fan and just in general love the competition that is involved in all sporting. the reason I am taking this class is the concept of it is very intriguing to me and I also feel as if I need to brush up on my writing skills as a whole. The part of the class I am most looking forward to is the social justice aspect. I think a lot of these topics coming out of the news need to reach more people. While I’m not someone who is heavily involved in this subject matter I still see how important and landscape shifting these stories are and want to become more intertwined with this part of society. I see the course packet as a great way to present the information to the class. I believe that students are slightly put off by textbooks. Knowing you have to read a number of pages out of them just naturally gives them anxiety from years of hating that format of learning in school. This form however is much less menacing and a great way to have many different sources of material in one place.
2. In the essay The Judgment of Thamus, we see the king Thamus giving his opinion on some inventions brought to him by the god Theuth. When Theuth bring about the invention of writing he is very excited about it and tells of the wonders it will bring to the Egyptian people. He makes claims that it “will improve both the wisdom and the memory of the Egyptians.” (Pg. 4) Thamus doesn’t believe this to be the truth and argues that this invention will negatively impact the memory of the people and they will become forgetful and rely on the form of writing to keep records of things in their lives. I believe Postman is trying to show us the wrongs by both of these men. They both can only see one side of the argument. They either view the negative aspect of the invention or the positive one. This is a recipe for failure, as you must objectively view new technology in the world, as it would be insane to thing that new inventions wouldn’t have both good and bad about them.
I believe that this argument made by Postman is extremely true. Some people don’t like to budge on their feelings about a new technology. Even I am guilty of this. While I can see that there are negatives to an iPhone, I wouldn’t admit to any of them publicly. I think that our society is so intertwined with the new technological era that we feel real, true emotional attachments to our devices. So even when someone points out the bad aspects of our devices our attachment won’t allow us to see their side of the argument. That’s an extremely dangerous way that we’re living however i’m not sure how easy it would be to change this.Because even though I am aware of this epidemic I will still freely admit that I am attached to almost everything I own that has a screen.
Well done!