Hey kids.
I'm actually not sure what I'm supposed to write...I still need to talk to the prof about it...
But anyway, let's just give it a go and hope I'm doing it right...
On the very first day of class, we (all 400+ of us) filled out a survey about our media use and whatnot. One of the questions was "Do you think you can change the world?" I put yes, along with 88% of my class. So in class on Tuesday (or Thursday?) the prof told us that we can't change the world. That's right. Can't.
Not the thing you'd expect to hear.
That of course made me mad, at least a little. We all want to think we have an impact on the world. Or else why would we do anything at all, right?
The prof's point was...um...?
Oh yeah. I remember.
The point was this: our generation grew up with computers, where we can constantly edit life. We write an essay, decide to take out a sentence or a paragraph, and all we have to do is press delete. We make a YouTube video and edit out the parts we don't want. We can cut and copy and paste and delete and add and who knows what else. We can change whatever we want, whenever we want. And so, since we have this mindset with computers, it translates over to our real life. It's so easy to change the digital world, that we think we can change the real world.
An interesting argument, eh?
So, with that being said, do you still think you can change the real world?
I think we can. Maybe we won't reach the entire world. Maybe not everyone will be changed. But what we say and do can and does impact people, even if it's just one person in a small way. Add up all the people we've impacted in our lives, and yes, I'd say that's a change in the world.
Ok ok just one more thing. In discussion yesterday we were talking about pros and cons of the internet. I think what's funny about the internet is that we can pick and choose our reality. Nothing on the internet is really real...obviously. Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and MySpace and whatever else you kids have these days are just edited versions of yourself. It's a false reality. You can lie, (mis)represent yourself, and fake it so easily over the internet. You show only the side of you that you want people to see. It's your edited self. The way you wish you were.
I love the internet as much as the next person, but when it takes over face to face conversation...I think there's something wrong.
So...that is all, I suppose.
Any thoughts about any of this?
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ReplyDeleteI certianly believe one person can change the world. What about Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Wilhelm Wundt, Socrates? Something can definetly be said about the way they each changed the world.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I learned in my biology class that animals change the world. I guess I never realzed this. An elephant can shove a tree over, for example. This changes life for every other animal that has or was to come into contact with that tree in the future.
One more thought, I promise. What you said about how the internet changes how we percieve the real world was absolutely right. It makes me wonder why people even watch TV anymore, because we can't change any of it.
OK, that's all.
People can change the world - I think it's worth noting that this is a media class, so you will be discovering that we really have a small voice in our media...but with that said, I do not believe that the world you find yourself in, the background you possess, and the abilities you have do not stop you from changing the world. Yes, the media and the world may make it seem like that is hard to do, but I'd like to argue that statement!
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ReplyDeleteThe question of "can we change the world" is merely a question of logistics. It's like asking if you can build a pyramid. Certainly, you can't. No man in his lifetime could build a pyramid. But pyramids exist. Great blocks of stone have been quarried, cut, and dragged into place. No man could do this. No ten men could do this. But maybe, just maybe, if hundreds of men, thousands of men came together, a pyramid would certainly be built.
ReplyDeleteAt that point, however, one or two men would make no difference to the work. But think - if every man took such a view, what would become of the work? If belief in individual effort was stifled, who would have hope? Who would build? What foolish man would begin dragging the first stone? Who would begin to chip away at the stone? Who would begin to carve from the quarry?
Every change is made up of people behind it. People have mass, the effort of our hands is work. You cannot simply eliminate someone from the process and say that nothing has changed. Change comes from a collective, but a collective is made up of individuals. If one drops out, another will take his place, or the entire movement will suffer. It will move regardless of whether you participate or not, but may move it if if indeed you chose to push. As long as he is pushing, no man can say, "Without me, it is not." However, every man pushing with you can say with you, "With me, it is."
In my Culture and the Christian class, we've been talking about how much impact the media can have on the worldviews of the people in society. People watch TV and movies and listen to the radio, and what they see and hear changes the way they see things. The media has an amazing amount of influence in our society, and it can be used to change the minds of people.
ReplyDeleteLike you said, even if we impact one person in some small way, that makes a difference.
I think that if an individual has a passion to change the world, he/she can. Like that levinsky person was saying, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, etc. obviously changed the world. I think that our generation merely lacks the motivation to do it. Like we say, "yeah i can change the world", but hardly anyone actually works really hard to do so. I don't know. I think this generation seems to be mostly the lazy and spoiled generation. hah. just some thoughts I had while reading your thing.
ReplyDeleteWe CAN'T change the world?! Sooooo what? Basically he is saying there's no point in trying to help those worse off than us or in trying to cure AIDS or anything like that because that ONE person who feeds a family and saves three people or finds a cure for AIDS and saves millions did absolutely NOTHING to change the world?! Where did this guy go to school? lol
ReplyDeleteWow. I'm really surprise that your teacher would tell students something like that. Seeing that we are the next generation and close to moving out into the world to make something of ourselves, he is just being down right discouraging. I don't really understand his point of comparing computer perception with reality perception. Although the computer is capable of making changes such as deleting and subracting a sentence, I think it is the author choosing to make said changes that still gives us a sense of reality. Before computers, we could remove sentences as well, it just took longer to retype everything, which would still mean that no one could change the world even before computers...which is wrong seeing that everything we do today is based on the knowledge of those before us. Just think, if Cara didn't write this blog, then I might have gone for a walk in the middle of the street and could have gotten hit by a car and died. But since I am writing and commenting on Cara's blog, I decided that when I am done I should just go to bed, thus staying alive. Because Im not dead, I could grow up to AWESOME (destiny lol). So Cara saved the world today!! or at least my world...that counts too right?
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